Best laptops for engineers and engineering students: When work requires a real workstation

The high-end laptop market for
engineering has narrowed recently. Just like with gamers, engineers pose
one of the toughest design challenges for laptop makers. Engineering
applications need plenty of memory, graphics horsepower, and large
screens — all hurdles in designing stylish, lightweight laptops. The
result is something of a trade off between performance and convenience.

Not every engineer will make the same
compromises, but there are a few laptops that stand out for use by
engineers, depending on their specific needs. This year we’ve also
included a couple options aimed a little more towards Engineering
students — who are usually on a more limited budget, and may also need
something smaller and lighter. So what’s the best laptop
for engineers and engineering students? Here are a few great options,
newly updated for 2016 — one of which will get the job done for you.

What, no MacBook Pro?

For those who have gotten used to seeing the MacBook Pro appear in nearly every “best of” list of laptops,
you won’t find it here. For starters, some of the top engineering
applications still do not run on OS X. Also, the MacBook Pro hasn’t been
updated in a while. A major overhaul is expected later this fall, which
may bring it up to par with some of the units we’ve described here.

The situation is different for most software
developers, for whom the MacBook Pro is a favorite. In addition to its
style, high-quality display, and long battery life, engineers who have
large software components in their projects often find it easier to
build and use open source projects under OS X — because of its Unix
underpinnings — than under Windows.

The good news on this front is that support
for both Windows and Linux on MacBooks has continued to improve, so they
are gaining in popularity among engineers — who often use OS X for
their productivity work and then Linux or Windows as needed for specific
engineering applications.

Best laptops for engineers and engineering students: When work requires a real workstation
Reviewed by Chidinma C Amadi
on
9:37 PM
Rating: 5